to the
two columns in the aisle below. They are poor in design and not
original. The western capital is 'Pseudo-Ionic,'[113] with a plain cross
on the northern face. The eastern capital is in the basket form with
roundels on the four faces. Two additional columns are found in the
western portion of the gallery. They are of verd antique and larger than
the other columns in this story of the church, and have sunk crosses in
them. The splendour of the interior decoration has certainly been
dimmed, for the walls of the edifice once gleamed with marbles and
glittered with mosaics. 'By the sheen of its marbles,' says
Procopius,[114] 'it was more resplendent than the sun, and everywhere it
was filled profusely with gold.' When Ferguson examined the building,
remains of frescoes or of mosaics, which have disappeared since his
time, could be distinguished in the narthex. The soffit, both of the
upper and of the lower cymatium on the piers, projects sufficiently to
admit the application of the customary marble incrustation. The
proportions of the building are marred by the boarded floor which rises
seventeen centimeters above the original pavement, disguising the real
elevation of the dome and of the columns in the lower colonnade. But
notwithstanding all changes for the worse the building is still a
beautiful structure. Very effective especially is the happy combination
of the various lines and forms here brought together--the rectilinear
and the semicircular sides of the octagon, the octagonal fabric and the
round dome that crowns it, the horizontal entablature stretched along
the summit of the lower story of columns and the arches that leap from
column to column in the gallery. This harmonious variety of form has
also a historical significance. An old order in architecture and a new
order here meet and embrace before the earlier, having served its age,
passes away and the later comes triumphant to fill another era of the
world with fresh beauties. Here in the tide of time we look before and
after.

To the student of architecture the dome of this church is specially
interesting. In the application of the dome to the octagon no
pendentives are employed. The octagon is carried up to the base of the
dome, which is built in sixteen longitudinal compartments that impinge
upon one another and form groins giving to the dome its strength and
sweep. On the groins is a plaster moulding, probably Byzantine. The
eight compartments direct